


Even in the Future, This is Hicktown

by MissCora



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 03:44:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,936
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/756660
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MissCora/pseuds/MissCora
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The town of Riverside has declared that it is James Tiberius Kirk Day. No way in hell is he missing the party.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Even in the Future, This is Hicktown

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the [Trekfest Tractor Pull and Greased Pig Contest](http://www.trekfest.com/events.php) and how totally unlike Eastern Iowa Riverside in the movie looks.
> 
> Originally posted at my livejournal some years ago. Reposting now in preparation for the new movie.

To say that all of Riverside was there would be true, technically, but it would also be understating the case by several orders of magnitude. It seemed like the entire state of Iowa had come out to welcome home its prodigal son, and possibly half of Illinois as well. The noise was astounding as the main float with Captain James T. Kirk and the bridge officers of the _U.S.S. Enterprise_ came down a street which seemed _much_ too small for the mass of humanity it contained and, while the majority of the yells were for Kirk, hero, captain and native son, throughout the crowd much could be heard about all of the officers as well.

While the high schoolers were extolling the virtues of Kirk's baby blue eyes and mischievous grin with all it promised, the shrill squeals of the pre-teen set were almost exclusively aimed at young Ensign Chekov, who seemed completely oblivious to the attention, much to his companions’ amusement. A collection of young men were somewhat lewdly endeavoring to get the attention of the beautiful Lieutenant Uhura when a group of Riverside townies let them know in no uncertain terms that the Lieutenant was much too good for them – having been shot down by the Lieutenant during her school years had become something of a badge of honor amongst the locals and no one who hadn't earned their stripes, so to speak, was going to be allowed to hassle her. Even the doctor seemed to have his fair share of admirers, a fact which, according to his scowl, didn’t much please him.

But, after Kirk, it was possible that Commander Spock was eliciting the most attention, although not all of it was complimentary. The people who worked and lived near the spaceport didn't seem to be disturbed by his presence - they saw aliens every day and many stranger than him - but there were a _lot_ of people there from outlying farms and townships and, according to the quiet mutters, not all of them approved of the half-Vulcan officer.

Still, those less than pleasant murmurs were vastly overshadowed by the outpouring of admiration for these men and women, these heroes of Earth.

*-*-*

"You know," Montgomery Scott said - well, slurred, really, there had been a definite quantity of beer pushed upon him already and he'd not done anything to resist. "I've explored strange new worlds, nearly been eaten by new life, been shot at by new civilizations and boldly gone where no man has gone before, but this? This may well be the strangest thing I have ever seen."

"Hey!" Jim shouted, leaning down from his elevated seat in the grandstand, which was unfortunate as it meant he was yelling pretty much straight into Scotty's ear. "There is nothing _strange_ about a tractor pull. This is, like, classic Americana. Strong, hardworking, honest men of the earth driving around massive, souped up pieces of machinery for fun. It doesn't get any better than this."

"I'm with Scotty on this one," Dr. McCoy put in from his seat next to Kirk. "I mean, I love a good greased pig chase as much as the next man," assuming the next man was Spock, his tone clearly said, "but what the hell are we doing here, Jim?"

"It is James Tiberius Kirk _Day_ , Bones. They have declared that I deserve my own holiday. You think I was going to miss this?" He leaned back in his seat and took a moment to really enjoy the perks of being the guest of honor. No rough wooden bleachers for the Captain of the _U.S.S. Enterprise_ and man of the hour, nossir.

"Yes, but why are _we_ being subjected to this... this... I don't even have words for what this is." What it was, at the moment, was a massive John Deere Heavy Super Stock Hover-Tractor setting off down the track with what had to be almost ten tonnes on the flatbed, kicking up dust like there was no tomorrow and making a truly _absurd_ quantity of noise.

"I believe, Doctor, that it would be safe to suggest that we are all here because we have been ordered to be. The Captain was quite explicit that we were all to attend." Spock's perfect composure looked to be somewhat dented by the noise and smell; there were definitely slight signs of strain around his eyes.

"What the hell have they done to that engine?" Scotty broke in before Kirk could start in again on this being a cultural experience. "Hover engines should _not_ sound like that."

"Eh?" Distracted, Kirk glanced down at the track then back at his chief engineer, shrugging. "Oh, they go to a lot of trouble to get the sound right like back in the old days. It's not as good as a real diesel engine but it helps set the atmosphere."

"Fascinating," Spock said. "I would not have imagined that an atmosphere such as this could be something one might try to attain."

*-*-*

Kirk gave in after a few more rounds of the tractor pull – truthfully, he'd always thought the lawn mower class was just silly and had no problems cutting out before it started – and finally released the crew to their own devices. They had scattered as soon as he let them, waving them off with a bright grin and an admonishment not to do anything he wouldn't do. Which, as Bones had pointed out, didn't rule out much. But this was Earth, and they were the heroes of the hour, Kirk was sure there'd be no trouble. Well, probably. Well, nothing they couldn't handle.

Wandering through the crowd Kirk accepted the hearty (and sometimes overly hearty) slaps on the back with the world's biggest grin, which just got bigger as he wandered towards the food stalls and the slaps were joined by offerings to buy him a drink. It was definitely good to be the hometown hero rather than fuckup for once. Men who’d once chased him off their properties or warned him away from their daughters were calling him ‘sir’ and damn if that wasn’t the greatest feeling in the world. He let himself be steered into the crowd which had formed in the middle of the dinning area and wasn't that surprised to find his two youngest officers at it's center, seated at a trestle table overflowing with food and drink.

“How you doing, boys?” he asked, dropping into a seat as a young man jumped out of it to offer it to him. “With all this food even your bottomless stomach might be satisfied, Chekov.”

“I have to say, Captain, I'm a bit overwhelmed,” Lieutenant Hikaru Sulu said, poking at the plate in front of them as if it was more interested in eating him than vice versa. “I don't believe I've ever seen so many different kinds of meat on sticks in my life. Scotty's right, you Midwesterners are _weird_.”

“What can I say? We know what we like in Iowa, and we like a lot of it: meat, corn, potatoes... And if you can deep fry it or put it on a stick, even better.”

“ _Keptin,_ ” Chekov said, licking a bit of grease off his fingers and leaning forward conspiratorially, “I must ask. What is 'funnel cake'?"

At that Jim's eyes got wide and he eyed his young ensign with something bordering on fear; undoubtedly he was picturing the already fairly hyperactive Russian on the world's biggest sugar rush, then darted a frantic glance over the spread on the table to make sure none of the dread confection had been set before them. “Whatever you do, Chekov, you must not eat the funnel cake,” he said. “Sulu, you can't let him.”

Sulu simply shook his head wearily, holding up his hands in denial. “I'm not making any promises when it comes to stopping him from eating anything.”

*-*-*

The carnie's expression was almost as flat as Spock's as he watched his patron line up the next shot and the dart sail straight on target into the next balloon, popping it handily. He sighed faintly, then waved at the next size up of prizes, collecting the previous win from where it had waited unloved on the counter top. Seven shots in and the streak didn't seem to be ending; he was fairly certain he'd be giving out one of the _big_ bears in a bit here.

“That one,” Uhura said, pointing randomly at one of the prizes and picking up her next dart.

“You know this is backwards, right?” Scotty said. “I mean, traditionally the man wins the bear for the lady.”

Spock merely arched an eyebrow. “Presuming automatic male superiority in any species is illogical, Mr. Scott, particularly in the light of available evidence.”

The engineer just blinked for a moment before Dr. McCoy sighed from where he was leaning against the game’s counter top, his attention more on the crowd which had gathered to watch the spectacle than the game itself. “He means she's better at this than he is, and he's okay with that.” As if to emphasize the point the next dart flew into the next balloon so hard the thunk of it's hitting the cork board could be heard over the pop of the balloon.

“I have to ask, ma'am,” the carnie said, handing over the next dart, “how _did_ you get so good at this?”

“I used to hustle townies in the spaceport bars,” she replied, and there was dead silence for a moment as the next balloon popped, both Bones and Scotty turning to stare at her, although Spock didn't seem surprised in the slightest.

The carnie whistled lowly. “Look, it's not like I don't appreciate y'all coming to my booth,” he said. “You're getting me lotsa attention, but if I just give your boyfriend the bear, will you go away? You're making me look bad.”

*_*_*

"Forgive me if I've misunderstood, Captain, but few of the owners of these animals are actively involved in the food production industry, correct?"

"No, mostly not," Kirk agreed, leaning against the railing of the pen, wondering briefly what it would have been like years ago when all it would have been rough wood under his fingers instead of the smooth, tough, fabricated plastics. "These are just for show, or private consumption. Some of the drivers and mechanics back at the tractor pull or over at the derby work on the big automated farms, and a couple of the animals are probably raised by the vets who work the ranches, maybe, although it's hard to make enough money on jobs like those to keep real livestock. Mostly these are the private projects of the grunts over at the spaceport, all of them driving home at the end of the day to try and get back to their roots, keeping a hen house for the eggs or a couple acres of crops to sell in the local market."

"But do they never seek out the culture and opportunities available to them in a city? The population numbers for this area are not that much lower than some of the smaller cities, simply more spread out. It would be a simple thing to create a city centrally located and those who worked on the farms could easily commute out, rather than everyone commuting in to work at the port."

Bones snorted, coming up behind the two of them from where he'd wander off down the way to look at over the rabbits, muttering something about his home back in Georgia. "No, Spock, nobody here is missing out on cultural opportunities, and they'd hate living in a city. People who live out here do it ‘cause they want the distance. They're comfortable knowing their nearest neighbor's ‘least a mile off. They live this way ‘cause they like it, ‘cause it's the way things have always been ‘round here."

Jim eyed his friend, realizing for the first time that the misanthropic doctor might well be talking about himself – as much as Jim himself had wanted to get out, away from Iowa and corn and his family and everyone's expectations that he would fail (which he might have somewhat intentionally fostered from time to time), Bones had never wanted to join Starfleet, never intended to leave Georgia.

"Fascinating," was all Spock said, but it would be impossible to say if he was referring simply to what McCoy had said or if he'd reached a similar conclusion regarding the doctor.

*_*_*

“I do not understand why the _Keptin_ was so insistent about the funnel cake, Hikaru. It looked good!”

“No, it really didn't, Pavel,” Sulu said, walking beside his friend as they wandered somewhat aimlessly through the crowds, neither having a destination in mind - Chekov because he didn't know what there might be to see at an event like this and Sulu because the whole thing seemed excessively rural to his city-bred eyes. He'd never understood Uhura's enjoyment of catching the shuttle to slum it out here when they'd been in school. “It looked like a heart attack on a plate, covered in tooth decay and prepared by a man who would have had to wash in order to reach 'questionable hygiene'.”

Chekov visibly deflated at the disdain apparent in Sulu's voice and Sulu mentally kicked himself – no need to drag his Russian friend into the centuries of inter-America culture clashes. Not that he wouldn't understand if Sulu explained - Russia was more than big enough to have similar problems and he thought relating Iowa to Siberia might work - but before he could say anything he heard someone in the distance.

“Flyboy! Hey, flyboy!”

Chekov clearly didn't recognize the call as pertaining to him or Sulu – there was too much noise around and he hadn't even been trying to mentally translate the crowds most of the time, preferring to focus on his friends and fellow officers - but when Sulu stopped he looked up to see a couple of local young men not much older than himself approaching them. And he had to admit to himself that, for all that the majority of the people he'd encountered out here had been very nice, these two did not look terribly friendly.

“What can we do for you gentlemen?” Chekov knew Sulu well enough to pick up on the hint of disdain in his tone but, while the men may not have heard it, it seemed as though they didn’t actually need the provocation.

“Ain’t no gentleman, flyboy,” one of them groused while the other smirked at the two officers. “’Sides, ain’t you we was callin’ at. So what’s the story, kid? Half-pint like you really an officer?”

“ _Da_ , I am Ensign Pavel Andreivich Chekov, navigator aboard the _Enterprise_.”

“Jeeze, he’s a kid _and_ a russki?”

“Oh, come on, guys,” Sulu broke in, not liking their tone. Because, while he wasn’t entirely sure where this was going, he was _quite_ sure the captain would not approve of him slugging some local for being a backwards-thinking, red-necked asshole. Possibly Uhura could get away with that, but not him. “There’s no need to cause a scene.”

“We don’t want no problems,” the taller of the two said. “Me’n Bobby just wanna talk to the kid. See what it takes for some lil’ kid to get inta Starfleet.”

“It is all right, Hikaru,” Chekov said, putting a hand on Sulu’s shoulder to stall him when he would have spoken up again. “What are you gentlemen wanting to know?”

Bobby grinned. “You’ve gotta do all that space training, yeah? Means you should be real good at something like that…” The man pointed across the way towards alley set up with rides and it was easy to see that he meant the one called The Cyclone.

Chekov followed his gesture and then grinned in return, the expression no less sharp than Bobby’s. “Of course I am. We can have a challenge. Whoever gets sick first must buy the drinks after.”

Sulu just sighed and refrained from pointing out to the two locals that Chekov wasn’t actually old enough to buy them alcohol; he sincerely doubted it would come to that and he was just as certain that this was going to be a _long_ afternoon.

*_*_*

“Jimmy?”

It was unexpected, to say the least. There were only four people in the universe who were allowed to call him that and Jim knew his mother was off planet and he’d left Bones admiring the horses. That left Sam, and God only knew where he was but Jim would bet the answer was ‘at minimum a thousand miles from here,’ and... “Mrs. Yoder,” he said, turning with a smile.

The familiar woman smiling back at him was like a pure breath of fresh air. The kind you could only get in Iowa. “My goodness, Jimmy, look at you. You have grown up, haven’t you?”

“Seems that way, Mrs. Yoder. It’s good to see you.” Which was... actually really kind of an understatement. The only babysitter in all of Washington County he and Sam had never managed to scare off and the best damn cookie baker in eastern Iowa, Mrs. Yoder had been a staple of his childhood, and seeing her smiling proudly up at him (up! He was taller than she was! When had that happened?) was pretty damn incredible. James Tiberius Kirk _Day_ incredible.

“But so skinny,” Mrs. Yoder said, coming closer and pulling him into a hug. “What, is there no food in space? Come on, off we go.” And the old woman was suddenly turning him around and pushing him to get him moving in the right direction.

“Um... _where_ are we going, Mrs. Yoder?” Jim asked, bemused but not actually arguing. Large portions of his childhood had involved this woman steering him about, so this was perfectly natural.

“The display hall,” was the firm answer. “The Ladies’ Auxiliary is having all you officers as guest judges in the cooking competitions. You, hero that you are, get to do the pies.”

Ooh, that was... Well, on the one hand, that was fabulous – Jim would get pie, and lots of it. On the other hand, that meant spending at least part of the afternoon with the Ladies’ Auxiliary, possibly the most terrifying organization known to farmboys everywhere. Still... pies... Casting a grin at Mrs. Yoder Jim couldn’t help but ask, “So... Can I do the cookies, too?”

*_*_*

The music had caught Jim’s attention as he wandered around trying to burn off the billion or so calories he’d taken in and his smile had just gotten bigger when he’d spotted some of his officers sitting and listening, watching the dancers out on the dancing square. He’d fully planned to sneak up behind Sulu and give him hell for simply watching rather than finding a pretty girl and joining in when he’d caught sight of _what_ the younger man was watching and more or less collapsed into the seat next to his pilot. “Tell me I’m seeing things, Sulu.”

“Sorry, Captain. If you’re hallucinating, I am, too, and I’ve been here long enough, I’m pretty sure I’m not hallucinating.”

“That’s Chekov and Uhura.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“They’re dancing.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“They’re line dancing.”

“Yes, Captain.”

“... Uhura’s pretty damn good at it.”

“Yes, Captain.”

Jim turned to fix a glare at Sulu, ignoring the fact that Scotty was sitting across from them, snickering at their dismay. “I told you not to give him any funnel cake. I was quite firm.”

“Wasn’t me, Captain,” Sulu replied, shrugging a shoulder and not looking away from where his young friend was mostly managing not to trip over his feet as he shuffled his way through another of the complex turns. “It’s all Bobby’s fault.”

“Bobby?”

“The local on Uhura’s other side,” Scotty put in. “Seems young Chekov’s made a friend.”

“... I’m thinking I don’t want to know.”

“Probably not, Captain.”

 

*_*_*

 

The big advantage of the massive fireworks display, Jim thought, was that the brilliant explosions in the sky didn’t actually counteract the stark fact that it was dark as fuck out on the fields surrounding the town. And for once he wasn’t pleased with this fact because he’d talked some pretty farm girl who wasn’t as much of an exhibitionist as he was out of her jeans. No, Jim Kirk was actually alone (and entirely by choice, thank you very much) as he lay back in the high grass to watch the gorgeous colors burst above him, marveling in the idea that it was all for him.

Given that the only sound he’d heard for almost an hour had been deep resonant booms he should possibly more surprised than he was by the approaching footsteps, or the familiar voice coming from above and behind him. “You done good, Jimmy.”

Somebody else he wasn’t going to punch for calling him that... “Hey, Sam,” Jim said, not turning to look at the older brother he’d not seen in more than a decade. “Didn’t really think you’d be here.”

The older Kirk was quiet for a moment as he settled down onto the grass near Jim, and out of the corner of his eye Jim could see Sam’s head tilt up, profile briefly outlined in bright red from above. “Town throws my little brother a party like this, you really think I was gonna miss it?”

“Kinda,” was the slow reply, and Jim was still resolutely not looking at his brother, though he could see Sam turn to consider him. “Didn’t think anything’d bring you back here,” he added after a moment. “You hate this place.”

“So do you, Jimmy.” And the younger Kirk didn’t really have anything to say to that, so it was several minutes before either of them spoke again, Jim obscurely pleased when he managed to wait out his brother. “Never thought I’d say this, but I’m glad you joined Starfleet. They’re good for you.”

“... Yeah, it was kinda a shock to me, too,” Jim admitted, finally turning to look Sam in the eye.

“I meant what I said, too, Jim. You done good. Got the whole damn town to sit up and take notice for once, and not just ‘cause you’d screwed up again. I’m proud of you. Proud to be able to tell people I’m Jim Kirk’s brother.”

“Finally, right?” Jim said, not making any effort to hide the bitterness in his voice as he turned, unseeing, back to the fireworks above.

“It’s more than I’ve ever done for you, kid.” Sam’s voice was quiet. “I shouldn’t have left you out here alone. Shouldn’t have let this damn town get to me. I’m sorry. I just... I never was as strong as you, Jim.”

“Nah,” James Tiberius Kirk said, voice tight, and if he was blinking faster and harder than normal, well, the fireworks didn’t make enough light to see. “I just wasn’t smart enough to get out while the getting was good. If Pike’d never come along I might still be stuck here in this damn town, living down to everybody’s lowest expectations.”

“Riverside never was big enough for either of us, Jimmy. Maybe all of space isn’t gonna be big enough for my little brother the hero. But I swear to God and to you, Jim, if that Starfleet of yours ever lets you down, I will make them regret every damn thing they’ve done to this family.”

“Never doubted it for a second, Sam,” Jim said, and this time the silence that fell between them was comfortable as it never had been when they’d been young.


End file.
